Sorry to necrobump but I find this topic endlessly fascinating, there always seems to be two extreme sides in this particular debate, the extreme audiophiles vs the extreme anti-audiophiles. One side swears bi amping your speakers with gold plated cabling produces 'sparkling' treble and 'spacious' realism, while the other screams 'I can't hear the difference on MY equipment between 128 and 320 so it DOESNT EXIST. I think the reality falls somewhere in between. Will a higher quality amp reduce THD and possibly sound better? Certainly, but not on speakers that aren't capable of resolving those details, or in a listening evironment with improperly placed speakers or lots of reflective surfaces, especially if the system hasn't been properly eq'd. The other comment regarding speakers, I went to a trip to the local hifi shop and you can most CERTAINLY hear the differences between expensive speakers. Case in point, I auditioned a pair of Paradigm Monitor 7's (about $700 a pair) and while there the salesman had me also listen to a pair of $3500 Thiele's swearing they were WAY better than the Paradigms. As you may know, Paradigm are a canadian speaker maker who focus on linear sound and don't do any marketing or advertising, preferring to spend those dollars on r and d. Thiele is one of those 'boutique' brands that are darlings of the 'audiophile' industry. Needless to say, the Paradigms presented a wonderfully crisp, clean and open sound, ie you could close your eyes and they melted away with a soundstage that extended in front and behind them, and an open 'un veiled' treble. The $3500 Thiele's on the other hand, the soundstage collapsed into a flat, dull lifeless sound. Even my wife, who probably doesn't know the difference between a woofer and a tweeter could easily tell the difference. In reference to 'can you hear the difference between 320 and 128', on some samples, absolutely not. However having my iems properly eq'd to reduce their nasty peak at 5khz, I have some music where a certain percussion instrument completely dissappears anywhere from lame -v6 on up to -v2. In fact I have to encode it at -v0 before the percussion is properly heard and sounds just like the FLAC. On my acer aspire netbook, I can't even hear that sound with the FLAC file. So, in the end, not all audiophiles are nuts, but a good portion of them are. I'm actually gonna do a post with some samples for others to test, because like I said, I can't even hear that detail on my netbook, while it's plainly audible on my sansa clip and phone at lame -v0 but not lame -v2. Could be another 'killer sample'.

Needless to say, the Paradigms presented a wonderfully crisp, clean and open sound, ie you could close your eyes and they melted away with a soundstage that extended in front and behind them, and an open 'un veiled' treble. The $3500 Thiele's on the other hand, the soundstage collapsed into a flat, dull lifeless sound.

It's okay if you want to discuss sound but please stop using these vapid poetics. They don't mean anything, they don't add to the discussion, they don't provide answers. Relevant topics here and here

I do appreciate that you mentally divorced the pricetag form the actual quality as you perceived it. That's never a bad thing.

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Even my wife, who probably doesn't know the difference between a woofer and a tweeter could easily tell the difference.

That doesn't matter. Anecdotal evidence. More people telling a story doesn't make a stronger argument. At best, it's cause for real investigation; at worst, it's material for bin and fireplace. Similarly, "different" does not equate to "better".

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I'm actually gonna do a post with some samples for others to test

This is good news.

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I have some music where a certain percussion instrument completely dissappears anywhere from lame -v6 on up to -v2.

I'm not sure how this is possible, but yes, a range of samples will determine what's what.

I will probably read the entire thread later, since I'm sure I'm repeating an argument given several times already.

Sorry to necrobump but I find this topic endlessly fascinating, there always seems to be two extreme sides in this particular debate, the extreme audiophiles vs the extreme anti-audiophiles.

False equivalence. dhromed said it nicely above.

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One side swears bi amping your speakers with gold plated cabling produces 'sparkling' treble and 'spacious' realism, while the other screams 'I can't hear the difference on MY equipment between 128 and 320 so it DOESNT EXIST.

At the very least you're straw-manning our position (nobody says because I can't hear it doesn't exist. People here would say something like: "you say there's a difference where no one else has proven it exists, now you prove it". At the most you're straw-manning both positions.

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I think the reality falls somewhere in between.

The one thing more annoying that someone setting up false dichotomies is for them to then pretend they're the reasonable ones, above both extremes.

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Will a higher quality amp reduce THD and possibly sound better? Certainly, but not on speakers that aren't capable of resolving those details, or in a listening evironment with improperly placed speakers or lots of reflective surfaces, especially if the system hasn't been properly eq'd.

This is standard "golden ear" (or "golden equipment"?) excuses. If you've been "endlessly" following this topic you should be very aware of these.

Frankly I don't think much of this community because it's members are generally so extreme and dickish. No matter how much you try to justify it to yourselves you will never appeal to anyone anywhere near the average joe. Central to this is my perception that you guys think subjective opinions are always wrong, and that anyone who doesn't know everything about anything is not welcome.

The whole kerfuffle with NvAvGuy @ Head-Fi put me firmly in the objectivist camp while I was previously on the fence.I never believed in half the rubbish that is promoted there but I thought it was at least a place worth going to until recently.More due to the bahavior of the ones who have an official position there than the generally staggeringly ignorant community. Talk about damage control.

I reject any argument saying that audio MUST be subjective, it's rubbish when we have the tools that we do. . . beyond that though, I'll always be somewhat in the middle, because extremists are always wrong.

The problem here is confusion between proof of absence and absence of proof. Some people simply don't undertstand the difference and then stick their fingers in their ears when you try to explain it to them.

How is that absolutism? How about the arrogance of people who invent these two "extremes" and pretend being in the middle of it raises them above? What is the middle ground between evidence-based and feelings-based when assessing reality?

The reason they could get away with this "extreme" and "middle ground" positions is that audio ultimately doesn't matter. You imagine yourself saying the same about medicine? Do you think there's a middle ground between all the vaccine-autism anecdotes, and the science that says there's no connection (plus all the dirty schemes Wakefield planned)?

Will you also provide ABX logs to support any claims you make about differences in sound quality or else refrain from making them?

(That's a rhetorical question.)

Actually that's a tough one, simply because I can't hear said instrument at all on my netbook, no matter the encoding, it just gets buried in guitar noise. Of course if there's a way to reliably perform said test using my clip+, I'm open to suggestions.

As far as the other comments go, fair enough, although I'm not sure what 'straw manning' means, if you thought I was being ambiguous, that wasn't my intention at all. The most important part is what your ears hear, that's a fact. But on the other side of it, what's wrong with using measurements to back up what you are hearing? And I never claimed to be 'above' anybody, that's narcisissm which is something I'm strongly opposed to.

My apologies for the vapid poetics, but isn't it contradictory to on one hand discourage the use of waveform graphs and nonsense like that to compare sound, yet jump all over me when I used my ears, no frequency response or square wave analysis, to compare two sets of speakers? If it's the terminology I used that is the problem, fine. What is the correct way to analyse stereo imaging when at a hifi store?

It is expected that our members read, understand and follow our terms prior to posting.

Now that link also contains other links, at least one of which is a sticky at the top of the Gereral Audio subforum. Make sure you read it too.

Something else to google:placebo effect and expectation bias

Quite often people hear things that didn't actually stimulate their auditory system, or failed to hear things that actually did stimulate their auditory system because they had a preconceived idea of what they are "hearing". You may only report on something you heard if you are also prepared to demonstrate that it was done only with your ears and not with your ears combined with your sight or anything else that may have given you a priori knowledge.

As far as the other comments go, fair enough, although I'm not sure what 'straw manning' means, if you thought I was being ambiguous, that wasn't my intention at all. The most important part is what your ears hear, that's a fact. But on the other side of it, what's wrong with using measurements to back up what you are hearing? And I never claimed to be 'above' anybody, that's narcisissm which is something I'm strongly opposed to.

A straw man is a type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position

QUOTE (Mach-X @ Aug 3 2012, 21:25)

My apologies for the vapid poetics, but isn't it contradictory to on one hand discourage the use of waveform graphs and nonsense like that to compare sound, yet jump all over me when I used my ears, no frequency response or square wave analysis, to compare two sets of speakers? If it's the terminology I used that is the problem, fine. What is the correct way to analyse stereo imaging when at a hifi store?

Most if not all here would agree that speakers do make a difference. I think the problem was with your use of vague terms, and your failing to realize that other factors may be at play, like speaker placement and room acoustics.

@andy O both sets of speakers were in the same room, albeit the placement was different, the Thiele's were placed slightly wider as it was a row of speakers being presented. The Paradigms were closer to center. But the audio difference was far more than imaging, and far greater than simple placement would incur. The Paradigms were simply far cleaner and had better imaging. BTW I had to tell the sales guy to turn down the volume because his first instinct was to 'crank them up' which resulted in gross distortion. The audible differences between the two speakers was far greater than simply moving them 3 or 4 feet would cause. The fact my wife could distinguish the difference between them was simply a confirmation by untrained ears that there WAS an easily audible difference between the two, not a claim of 'the paradigms are more linear'. For all I know, those $3500 thiele's might have a more linear frequency response, I don't know I didnt check the graphs. The point is the Paradigms sounded better to our ears, which, I'm pretty sure is the underlying focus of hydrogenaudio. Could we abx them? Yea they sounded completely different.

@greynol, not sure if you are referencing my speaker comparison or my codec comparison, but i'll attempt to address both. In terms of the speaker listening, there was no placebo or expectation effect because I was simply curious as to how more expensive speakers would sound compared to my $50 radio shack bookshelves, and whether or not spending around $1000 would provide ample enjoyment to justify the purchase. $1000 is a huge difference from $50 in terms of cash outlay. What we heard that day certainly justifies spending more money and has me leaning towards Paradigm. Could either one of us ABX the radio shacks vs the paradigms? Definately, as there's no comparison. We could do the same with the more expensive Thieles, as the differences were THAT pronounced.

As far as the music where I heard the difference between lame -v6, the flac, and lame -v0, it's pretty simple and straightforward. Again I had no placebo or expectation effect because for most of my music, lame -v6 was transparent to me, until I ran accross this particular album, which uses a certain percussion instrument in the left side of the soundfield, it kind of sounds like a maracca or one of those old school washboards. Like a 'shika shika' type sound. On my clip, using rockbox to properly eq my iems, the sound was completely absent in lame -v6 on up to -v2, so I simply switched to lame -v0, where i could finally hear it and it sounded just like the FLAC version. BTW I used to be a WMA fanboy, but I had to go up to WMA VBR 98 before the effect was audible, it was washed out in the 90 setting, the 98 setting resulted in far larger file sizes than lame -v0 which greatly influenced my decision to go with lame as opposed to wma. Again I will post samples of said album, as I think the lame developers could be interested in further tuning of it, soon as I have enough time to use audacity to make proper samples. Should I provide samples of lame -v6 on up to lame -v0, or just lame -v2 and lame -v0, also should I provide wma samples at q90 and q98 or would the lame samples suffice next to the flac? Again what i'm hearing and not hearing could be highly dependent upon eq settings/hardware as i said, i can't hear the instrument period on my netbook, only on my clip+. Your responses are greatly appreciated.

The fact my wife could distinguish the difference between them was simply a confirmation by untrained ears that there WAS an easily audible difference between the two

Or just a confirmation that expectation bias/placebo is not confined to non-hobbyists/non-buyers/men/choose your own group of people here. I’m not making any insinuation about your wife’s hearing ability or conviction in what she said, but what makes you think that someone can deflect concerns about these effects by citing the subjective opinion of someone else? All that does is move the goalposts; the same objection now applies to someone else, who in this case cannot (and should not be expected to, since it’s your post) field any potential objections.

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For all I know, those $3500 thiele's might have a more linear frequency response, I don't know I didnt check the graphs. The point is the Paradigms sounded better to our ears, which, I'm pretty sure is the underlying focus of hydrogenaudio.

Thanks for the assumption, but the only kind of ‘sounding better’ that Hydrogenaudio is concerned with is that which is backed up by objective evidence, such as double-blind testing and/or numerical measurements (of which the latter are less relevant/reliable in discussion of perception, by definition).

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Could we abx them? Yea they sounded completely different.

I wish I didn’t have to point out that these two statements are in no way logically connected or equivalent.

Again, I’m not denying that the effects you heard existed – that would be fallacious, too –, and neither am I claiming that it’s unreasonable to expect (a key word) or indeed find (via objective evidence) entry- or sub-entry-level hardware to have inferior performance. I’m just saying that the mere assertion of such effects is not evidence of their existence – for which reason it’s not really of much use to Hydrogenaudio as a medium.

To that end, I guess many people will be interested in any more concrete information/evidence that you might provide.

Frankly I don't think much of this community because it's members are generally so extreme and dickish.

Bye, then, I guess?

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No matter how much you try to justify it to yourselves you will never appeal to anyone anywhere near the average joe.

Although I imagine most of us would like to help “the average joe” (whoever that is) to incorporate a more objective and evidence-based approach to their lives, I don’t think we’re being unrealistic by assuming that we have a majority audience among the entire population; the opposite’s being true is quite obvious.

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Central to this is my perception that you guys think subjective opinions are always wrong

Nope.

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and that anyone who doesn't know everything about anything is not welcome.

Nope.

The ol’ one-two, eh? In this case, two misrepresentative disparagements in a single sentence. I’d say you either have an agenda or a serious misconception about the intentions of Hydrogenaudio and its “average” member. Subjective opinions are acceptable if substantiated by objective evidence or if objectivity does/can not apply (e.g. as in musical preferences), and there is no requirement that users be experts or witch-hunted if they are found not to be.

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I reject any argument saying that audio MUST be subjective, it's rubbish when we have the tools that we do. . . beyond that though, I'll always be somewhat in the middle, because extremists are always wrong.

Change that “always” to mostly and we might have somewhere to start. andy o has already pointed out how potentially fallacious it can be to excessively venerate some cherished (and still undefined) ‘middle ground’ in this way. Come to think of it…

I still don’t understand how that link and your statement are supposed to work together, seeing as it explicitly states (much as I just have) that sometimes one side is correct. But I’m sure we all thank you for the characterisation!

But the core problem here is, I think, an imprecise conflation of (1) extremism and (2) holding an opinion based upon evidence or the rejection of another’s opinion based upon a lack of evidence. How are those two things equivalent? For one thing, sometimes an extreme is true. Diverging somewhat, extremism is a highly loaded term, with broad socio-political connotations, that I don’t think is relevant to a requirement of evidence. If you’re trying to paint those who value objectivism in audio and/or in life in general as pitchfork-wielders, crusaders, or whichever other variety is en vogue today, then I don’t think you’re going to do very well.

@db1989 on your first point, all it was was that a set of untrained, ie, non audiophile ears, could easily distinguish a difference, nothing more. By non-audiophile, I mean a person who only listens to music casually and doesn't generally have an ear for compression artififacts, transients or anything of the sort. She wouldn't know if they were radio shack, sony, thiele or paradigm, nor would she care.

On your second point, since I walked in with no instruments of measure, and compared speakers of a widely differing price range, using my ears and nothing else, that's what this forum is focused around, what you hear with your ears. I did a listening test between two sets of speakers in a listening room, and gave my subjective, ie using my ears, opinion. This occured 4 years ago, what do you want me to do, go back and DEMAND a double blind listening test? It wouldn't prove anything because even the most inexperienced listener could hear the difference. From what I have read and understood, numerical measurements are NOT allowed here, otherwise I could have provided graphs of the speakers measured freq response. So we are left with the side by side testing we did.

On your third point, since we did side by side listening, in the same room of said speakers, what more measurement do you want, since measured graphs are unacceptable here, which I completely understand and agree with.

I’m not saying that you were wrong, nor am I expecting you to traverse the length of the country and its stores/lawns/landfills in an attempt to prove that you were right!

What I’m saying is that the report of your subjective experience, or anyone else’s, does not have much potential for discussion. The point of requiring objective support is so that discussion can be had on a reliable basis (or at all), so that readers do not get misled, and so that the claimant might learn of more reliable ways to assess alternatives – particularly when money is involved, but also just because truth is good. I hope I don’t have to state explicitly that this does not equate to outright saying that you’re wrong. All it means is that other factors may have been at play and there’s not a lot that anyone else can do with this one anecdotal experience at this stage.

I hope you see that I’m trying to reply in a sense more general than the inherently limited scope of your personal reports, and perhaps your understanding (or even opinion) of Hydrogenaudio and its foundations has been improved by my interpretation thereof; others are welcome to give their perspectives, of course.

Based on the the level of understanding shown I can see that my presentation of ToS #8 was probably not necessary, at least as it related to expectation bias. However, there is a second part to the rule that addresses language, which we also expect to be followed.

Anyway, if one wants to know what to do in order to satisfy the rule, it's pretty easy: don't offer up subjective opinions if they cannot be backed by objective evidence. Believe it or not, we often grant leeway when differences aren't subtle or don't require golden ears. Speakers and headphones are generally considered different enough. This still doesn't excuse the flowery descriptions though. The same applies to lossy encodings using a setting that is commonly considered not to be transparent against something that is more likely considered to be transparent. On the other hand do not even bother talking about amplifiers, DACs and cables without objective evidence, though sometimes we grant leeway with portable devices as well when people talk about things like noise associated with the display or an inability to properly drive certain impedances. Common sense should dictate.

since measured graphs are unacceptable here, which I completely understand and agree with.

There seems to be some confusion.

Measurements and graphs are not proof that A sounds better than B. e.g. Noticing the very clear lowpass in the spectrogram of an mp3 does not mean the mp3 sounds worse. You need to subjectively experience the sound to reach the right conclusion.

They're very welcome here, but not as a demonstration of quality.

Subjective, anecdotal stories are not proof that A sounds different from B. e.g. swapping your $5 cables with $1000 cables and claiming a world of difference does not actually demonstrate any difference between the cables. You need to objectively measure the cables to reach the right conclusion, or set up a double-blind listening experiment.

I'm looking forward to hearing the samples of the percussion instrument you mentioned.

@andy O both sets of speakers were in the same room, albeit the placement was different, the Thiele's were placed slightly wider as it was a row of speakers being presented. The Paradigms were closer to center. But the audio difference was far more than imaging, and far greater than simple placement would incur. The Paradigms were simply far cleaner and had better imaging. BTW I had to tell the sales guy to turn down the volume because his first instinct was to 'crank them up' which resulted in gross distortion.

You rather clearly invalidated your experience as a relevant test because it is obvious from your own words that there was no attempt at proper level matching.

BTW, the wife reference is an audio cliche. Just FYI. ;-)

ABXing speakers is very difficult because just small changes in the position or orientation of even the same speakers is easily detected in an ABX test.

The fact that the evaluation was not blind does whatever might be needed to drive the last nail in the coffin of this anecdote as a experience with any global significance.

Eh? How is bringing in somebody with no expectation bias an 'audio cliche'. I'm pretty sure including somebody without a 'horse in the race' is as objective as you can get is it not? What I find interesting is how many people are willing to try and tell me that I absolutely did not hear a pair of speakers that I enjoyed far more than another pair. I also entertain people to enlighten me as to the proper terms to use when judging stereo imaging. You can't use spectral analysis graphs for something like that. You have to use your ears. What does 'level matching' have to do with it? Are you telling me that speakers with poor stereo imaging will suddenly blossom into transparency if you adjust the volume on them?

On the ABX thing, it's absolutely the most essential way to establish the existence of audio differences. However I think it is most certainly possible to get fatigued by the process and overlook subtleties, for example when trying to listen for faint pre echo in a complex passage. Sometimes a break is needed, or even more extended listening while not trying to focus directly on what you are listening for.

But I've also experienced samples where you *think* you've heard an artifact, only to listen to a lossless copy and hear the exact same 'artifiact' XD

Eh? How is bringing in somebody with no expectation bias an 'audio cliche'.

Well first off, you didn't bring in a person with zero expectation bias. You brought in a person who we surely hope seeks to please you, and that's about as much expectation bias as one finds.

Secondly, like many cliches, it has just come up a zillion times in the past decade or two.

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I'm pretty sure including somebody without a 'horse in the race' is as objective as you can get is it not?

That person without a horse in the race would not be your wife, at least I hope so! ;-) IOW she probably has more than one horse in the race if you really think about it. Your happiness and your money, for openers.

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What I find interesting is how many people are willing to try and tell me that I absolutely did not hear a pair of speakers that I enjoyed far more than another pair.

That is a false claim. Please let me clarify, I'm sure that you enjoyed one pair of speakers more than the other. However, this is a discussion about why.

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I also entertain people to enlighten me as to the proper terms to use when judging stereo imaging.

Actually you can, but the analysis gets a bit complex for speakers. For electronics, spectral analysis is often very sufficient.

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You have to use your ears.

You have more options, for the reason already stated.

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What does 'level matching' have to do with it?

You seem to be completely ignorant of the basics of experimental design.

Here's a quick review of what is probably the most important high school level factoid about experimental design:

If a situation has relevant parameters A, B, C, D... and you want to evaluate say B, then you must hold parameters A, C, D... constant while you evaluate B.

This is actually not a hard and fast rule if you do a number of evaluations and vary things systematically, but in a simple situation with just one comparison, it is a good rule to follow.

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Are you telling me that speakers with poor stereo imaging will suddenly blossom into transparency if you adjust the volume on them?

Excluded middle argument noted. What is being said is that small variations in level can be perceived as amazingly strong variations in very many other things, one of them being imaging.

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On the ABX thing, it's absolutely the most essential way to establish the existence of audio differences.

Not really. There are a number of good ways to establish and characterize audible differences. Good experimentalists know a bunch of them and pick the right tool for the job at hand.

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However I think it is most certainly possible to get fatigued by the process and overlook subtleties, for example when trying to listen for faint pre echo in a complex passage. Sometimes a break is needed, or even more extended listening while not trying to focus directly on what you are listening for.

Of course, but you've essentially claimed repatedly here that stupid mistakes like that influenced every listening test that has results that vary from your own obviously muddled attempts at experiments.

You've told a group of actually amazingly well-educated and experienced people that your hero from the 1980s is better and smarter than all of us put together. Given all the obviously false claims that you have made so far, there is considerable evidence that you lack the knowledge and experience to make such global statements with useful amounts of accuracy.

You've told a group of actually amazingly well-educated and experienced people that your hero from the 1980s is better and smarter than all of us put together.

You have to admit this is an amazingly transparent argument from authority.

Both ways.

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It comes across as WE ARE THE FINEST MINDS OF HYDROGENAUDIO! TREMBLE BEFORE OUR MIGHTY INTELLECT! and I doubt that this is the image we want to project.

Excluded middle argument. Given that our correspondent said that the whole lot of us don't add up to this one man's pinky finger, there's no claim here of our immense superiority, just that the whole lot of us might add up to be merely competent.

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Years of experience and a firm grasp of the theory is certainly not evident from just a username or a few posts. I think some leeway can be granted here.

I seriously don't believe that our correspondent is even a tiny bit of competent enough to reliably discern the difference, even if all facts were known to him.

I'm thinking about the kindergartner who says "My daddy is way smarter than you". While it might be true, is our judge de jour really qualified to make the statement?

Remember, this is the same guy who said that no way can you compare A to B mid-trial in an ABX test.